Martin Slumbers says ‘spectator experience’ remains important focus for Claret Jug event
Talk of Royal Troon members being unhappy about certain aspects of the 152nd Open at the Ayrshire club have been played down by The R&A.
The Scotsman understands that concern had been expressed by a section of Royal Troon members about some aspects of this year’s Claret Jug event compared to past stagings there.
Won by American Xander Schauffele, the tournament attracted a sell-out crowd of 250,000, which represented a huge 77,000 increase from the 2016 edition at the same venue.
“We are guests at their club,” said Martin Slumbers, The R&A’s CEO, in reply to being asked about the talk of some unhappiness among the Royal Troon membership. “We don’t own any of these golf courses.
“Yeah, we are very conscious of that,” he added of aiming to try and make members of the host club happy during the week of The Open. “But, quite often, the concerns are more down to mis-communication than reality. We absolutely want the club to enjoy the experience.
“We don’t take over the club. We take over the golf course. But we leave the golf course in a better condition than we took it on because we bring all the capabilities towards it.”
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It now seems that 250,000 is the minimum target for ticket sales for the world’s oldest major, with a whopping 290,000 having been in attendance for the 150th Open at St Andrews in 2022.
Slumbers, who will hand over the reins to his successor, Mark Darbon, next month, was asked if there is a fine line between having a huge attendance and still being able to deliver the best-possible spectator experience.
“At the same as we have been extremely commercial in trying to build the sales and marketing capability, we have also been very commercial in having a huge amount of independent market research done throughout the year and especially during The Open week,” he said.
“Ever since 2017, we’ve had a firm independently talk to players, spectators, sponsors, the media. People don’t like feedback, but we have learned a lot from feedback and, as part of that, you have a net promoter score (NPS).
“Which is how much someone would support the event and the activity and our spectators still rate The Open very highly. Our NPS is significantly higher than most other events. So, at the same time as we have increased the number of people attending The Open, we have also really focused on the logistics of giving them a great experience.
“So, getting from the car park into the venue is something that we have people who do that for a living. They focus on that whole experience because that matters to an individual.
“The building of the very significant grandstand behind the practice ground was new at Troon and people forget that the Toptracer on the driving range and the huge screen, we were the first to do that in 2017 and now everybody does it.
“We have spent a lot of time thinking about how we improve the customer experience because we are conscious that we have put a lot more people in there. Do we get it right all the time? No, of course not. But we learn.”
